The Gospel Experience by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 19, 1903

The Gospel Experience

By Editor

Editorial

The Gospel Experience

THE experience of the genuine gospel is thus expressed: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.” This is “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The work of the minister of this gospel is to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God;” and the sum of it all is, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” The reality of this experience marks the difference between being in the flesh and in the Spirit. “So then they that are in the flesh can not please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Rom. 8: 8-13. All this is simply

the full revelation of the gospel of the kingdom, the kingdom within, that everlasting kingdom which will continue as long as the eternal God lives. When Jesus, the Son of God, became united to this human family by birth, taking upon himself the same sinful flesh which every son and daughter of Adam bears, he revealed in his own person that mystery which had been the hope of the church in all the ages. In him all the human family conquered sin through the power of the indwelling Spirit; in him all the human family paid the penalty of sin, “because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;” in him all the human family was raised from the dead and seated on high, since he “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;” but all this “is of faith, that it might be by grace.” No outward form, not even the observance of a gospel form, when the observance is merely outward, can take the place of living faith. “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth nothing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”

Pray Without Ceasing

IT is worse than useless for us to attempt to make a scientific analysis of prayer. There are many questions concerning God and our relationship to him which very ordinary people can ask, but which human wisdom can not answer. It is not well to attempt to be wise above what is written. We do not find Jesus discussing with his disciples the reasonableness of prayer, neither do we find him explaining how God could answer prayer and still be the unchangeable God, but we do find him much in prayer to his Father and our Father, and he taught his disciples to pray. The godly life of one who prays much is a more convincing testimony to the value of prayer than many sermons on prayer, although neither of these is inconsistent with the other. Call to mind some of the experiences of Jesus: “In the morning, a great while before day, he rose up and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed.” “He went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God.” It was this same Jesus who said to his disciples, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Read his prayer just before

his crucifixion, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, and you can no longer question about the reality of communion between man who is flesh and God who is Spirit. Hear him, the Son of man, saying, “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us. . . . O righteous Father, the world knew thee not, but I knew thee.” It was because he, the Son of man, knew the Father, and prayed much to the Father, that he was able to represent the Father to the world. So it is with the Christian. The holiness (wholeness) of his life depends upon prayer, and no analysis of prayer will take the place of prayer. “He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.” “Pray without ceasing.” “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made unto God.” “Continue in prayer.”

Teaching Truth

THERE are three names which are applied to Jesus as describing his work upon earth. They are Apostle, Prophet, and Teacher. Our Saviour was, however, addressed as Teacher (Master in our Authorized Version) more frequently than in any other way. And such was the character of the instruction which he gave that all acknowledged the authority of his teaching. Nicodemus said, “We know that thou art a teacher come from God.” The Pharisees “send to him their disciples, with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth.” And “the multitudes were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” In his examination before Pilate, Jesus himself thus spoke of his mission: “To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Here is the example for those who have been commissioned to represent Jesus as teachers. Above all things else they should be sure that they teach only what is truth. This can be possible only when the teachers are in personal communion with him who is the Truth, receiving the living truth from him. “When the anointed ones empty themselves through the golden pipes, the golden oil flows out of themselves

into the golden bowls, to flow forth into the lamps, the churches. This is the work of every true, devoted servant of the living God. . . . How dare they advance ideas when they do not know certainly whence they came, or that they are the truth?” Such is the responsibility which rests upon every teacher of the gospel. In this time when error abounds, and many have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, we should with prayerful study search for the truth as for hid treasure, so that “if any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God,” he may bear witness to the truth as it is in Jesus.